 |
|
CONSTITUTION OF THE
PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC
DECREE-LAW
Nº 244/94, OF SEPTEMBER 26
Regulating the National Registry of Non-Donors
DECREE-LAW
Nº 274/99, OF JULY 22
Regulating thedissection of corpses and the extraction of parts,
tissues of organs for the purposes of scientific research and teachin
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DECREE-LAW Nº 244/94,
OF SEPTEMBER 26
Regulating the National Registry of Non-Donors
Article 2
Expressing lack of consent for donation
1 – The total or partial lack of consent for the
post-mortem donation of certain organs or tissues or for the allocation
of those organs or tissues for certain purposes will be expressed
before the Ministry of Health by means of enrolling in RENNDA. This
enrolment entails the filling out of an official form in triplicate
by the bearers of by their legal representatives.
Article 15
Consulting RENNDA
1 – All public and private hospitals which, in accordance
with the law, perform the post-mortem harvesting of organs or tissues
must check, before the harvesting is carried out, through the co-ordination
bureaux for the harvesting and transplanting of organs and the histocompatibility
centres, whether there are any restrictions or opposition to the
donation registered with RENNDA.
2 – In accordance with the previous number, the co-ordination
bureaux for the harvesting and transplanting of organs, and the
histocompatibility centres, are directly linked to the automatised
files of RENNDA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DECREE-LAW
Nº 274/99, OF JULY 22
Regulating thedissection of corpses and the extraction of parts,
tissues of organs for the purposes of scientific research and teachin
Article 3
Permitted acts
1 – The acts regulated in Article 1 are permitted when the deceased
person explicitly stated in life his or her wish to make his or her
dead body available for the purposes of scientific research and teaching.
This statement of will may be revoked by its author at any time.
2 – Apart from the cases prescribed in the previous number,
the dissection of corpses, or parts of them, is permitted in accordance
with Article 1, provided that:
a) When alive, the individual did not express his or her opposition
before the Ministry of Health; and
b) The body is not claimed, in any manner, within twenty-four hours
of the persons referred to in Article 4, No. 1 being aware of the
aforementioned individual’s death.
3 – The extraction of pieces, tissues or organs, for the purposes
mentioned in Article 1, is also permitted, if the individual did not
express, when alive, his or her opposition before the Ministry of
Health.
Article 4
Legitimacy
1 – The persons who have legitimacy to claim the body are,
successively:
a) the executor of the will when carrying out the instructions of
the deceased;
b) the surviving spouse or the person with whom he lived in a situation
similar to marriage;
c) the ascendants, the descendants, adopting or adoptive persons;
d) kin to the second degree on the collateral line.
2 – When the body is claimed by persons with legitimacy to
do so beyond the term prescribed in Article 3, No. 2, b) or when,
regardless of the term, the body is claimed by a person other than
the ones referred to in the previous number, the claim will only
be granted after the possible use of the corpse for the purposes
of scientific research and teaching. The authorities who performed
the acts mentioned in Article 1 must, to the best of their ability,
attenuate the marks resulting from such practice.
3 – In the cases prescribed in the previous number, the corpse
may not be held for more than fifteen days in the institutions where
the authorities mentioned in Article 2 normally perform their activities.
Article 5
Expressing opposition
1 – In accordance with the present law, non-donors are enrolled
in an autonomous file, in the National Registry of Non-Donors (RENNDA).
Their situation is regulated by Decree-Law No. 244/94, of September
26, with the necessary adaptations.
2 – Expressing the opposition mentioned in Article 3 is part
of the form prescribed in Article 2 of Decree-Law No. 244/94, of
September 26, and is freely revocable by its author at any time.
3 – The data in the aforementioned form are inserted in the
file referred to in No. 1, and regulated by Decree-Law No. 244/94,
of September 26, with the necessary adaptations.
4 –Up to the date when the present diploma comes into effect,
the non-donors enrolled in RENNDA are presumed to be non-donors
as prescribed in Article 1.
5 – In accordance with this diploma, the institutions mentioned
in Article 2 hold timely access to the data included in RENNDA,
as prescribed in Article 15 of Decree-Law No. 244/94, of September
26.
Article 6
Prohibitions
1 – The commercialisation of corpses and parts, tissues or
organs extracted from them is forbidden.
2 – In accordance with this diploma, the disclosure of the
identity of the person whose corpse may have been used is forbidden.
Article 20
Penal dispositions
1 – As prescribed in Article 1, whoever commercialises corpses,
whole or partial, or parts, tissues or organs extracted from them,
will be punished with a term of imprisonment of between 2 and 10
years.
2 – Whenever the dissection of corpses or of parts of them
are performed on or the pieces, tissues or organs are extracted
from a person who expressed his or her opposition to such practice
when alive, and as prescribed in Article 5, the aforementioned sentence
will be aggravated in its minimum and maximum limits by a third.
|
|
|
